Boiler pipes and electric baseboard heat

My husband and I are looking at an aprtment on the Upper West SIde of NYC. It is being completely renovated. It is a WW2 era building made of stone. THe landlord has said that he is getting rid of the radiators and replacing them with baseboard heating. He says that since the boiler pipes are still in the walls and will be hot. He has added baseboard heating as a "back-up" for anyone who wants additional heat - which the tenant would pay for themselves. Can boiler pipes in the walls provide any warmth to an apartment without a radiator? We have not signed the lease yet....pls respond as soon as possible. We are freaked out about signing this lease and being stuck with a HUGE heating bill. Thanks!

Yes, steam pipes embedded in walls have a lot of surface area and can put a lot of heat into the space, but it's at an uncontrolled rate. Using electric baseboard to heat the place is insanely expensive at NYC's electricity pricing to operate in comparison to a central gas boiler, even at the atrocious efficiency of some of those systems. The landlord saves a lot of money by only partially heating your space, but you make up the difference with the most expensive heat possible.

And unless the landlord will stipulate in writing that the pipes will always be hot when it's below 60F outside, the baseboard could be covering 100% of the heating load.

If the landlord were installing a ductless air source mini-split heat pump instead of baseboard it might be more reasonable for the tenant, since the efficiency of mini-splits is high in both heating and cooling mode (it's 2x as efficient as a window air conditioner, and 10x quieter), but that's a lot more expensive to install than electric baseboard.